Wireless bus communication applications have several unique requirements compared to other wireless communication applications. In wireless bus communication between wireless stations (transmitter and receiver), data packets need to be transmitted in a very short time over a wireless communication medium (e.g., radio frequency). Low-latency is a major requirement for supporting wireless bus applications. Further, the wireless connection between the transmitter and the receiver needs to be kept alive, even when no data is transmitted. Otherwise, data packet transmission latency can be very long due to connection setup or re-connection. In addition, data packets may be very small for wireless bus applications and the data arrival from the application layer may be bursty and random.
For wired bus (not wireless) communication applications, it can be easily determined if the bus is alive by detecting the power level of the communication wire at either the transmitter side or the receiver side. However, for wireless bus communication applications, it is difficult to determine if the bus is alive because there is no physical wire between the transmitter and the receiver. The only way to maintain the connection between the transmitter and the receiver is to keep exchanging wireless signals between them. However, such exchange of signals is costly in terms of power consumption at both the transmitter and the receiver.